Sam Binkley is Associate Professor of Sociology at Emerson College. His research focuses on the formation of subjectivity in the context of contemporary social life. Employing theoretical tools derived from the works of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu and others, he has investigated formations of selfhood in a variety of sites, from the counterculture lifestyle movements of the 1960s and 70s, to Cuban socialism, to contemporary anti-consumerist movements. He has also published theoretical studies on such themes as reflexive subjectivity, consumerism, temporality, governmentality, habitus and neo-liberalism. His recent book, Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s (Duke University Press, 2007) examines the role of lifestyle print culture in the shaping of personal identity. He is co-editor (with Jorge Capetillo) of A Foucault for the 21st Century (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), and his articles have appeared in the Journal of Consumer Culture, Rethinking Marxism, Cultural Studies, Foucault Studies, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies, Time & Society, The European Journal of Cultural Studies and the Journal for Cultural Research. In addition to serving as co-editor of the journal, Foucault Studies, he is currently working on a new book project on happiness, life coaching and positive psychology, as a case of neo-liberal governmentality.
Shifra Diamond (Director of Programs and Communications) directed the Foucault Society’s 2011-12 Colloquium Series. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Sciences, an interdisciplinary program in language, culture and society at George Washington University. Her dissertation explores the conceptual development of exemplarity and intelligibility in the work of Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. She has presented papers at the American Comparative Literature Association, Cultural Studies Association, and the National Women’s Studies Association, and has taught courses in queer studies, women’s studies, and feminist and poststructuralist theory at New School University and Long Island University, Brooklyn. She has also served on conference planning committees for the New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA) and the Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST). In 2008-2009, she co-directed the Foucault Society’s Seminar Series on The Birth of Biopolitics, which was funded by a mini-grant from the New York Council for the Humanities.
Mike Jolley (Treasurer) is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and has taught sociology and children’s studies at Hunter College, Queens College, College of Staten Island, and Brooklyn College; he has also been a CUNY Writing Fellow at Bronx Community College and Baruch College as part of CUNY’s Writing Across the Curriculum initiative. Over the last 10 years he has worked in mental health, and has planned and managed several youth education and employment programs in Central Harlem. He also has experience in nonprofit grant writing and contract negotiation and has worked as a consultant providing personnel training in the areas of program design and management. He has published in Foucault Studies and in Understanding Emerging Epidemics: Social Political Approaches (Emerald Press, 2010). His research interests include biopolitics, urban space and changing ideas about youth deviance. In 2008-2009, he co-directed the Foucault Society’s Seminar Series on The Birth of Biopolitics.
Kevin S. Jobe is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Stony Brook University. He is the author of The Epistemology of Pathology: Essays on Mental Health from Plato to Foucault (VDM-Verlag 2009). His research interests lie at the intersection of political philosophy and the philosophy of race. Kevin has directed the Foucault Society’s reading groups on Society Must Be Defended (Fall 2012) and The Courage of Truth (Spring 2012).
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